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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25208341">Bury It Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/soprano_buddy15/pseuds/soprano_buddy15'>soprano_buddy15</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last Kingdom, The Last Kingdom (TV), The Warrior Chronicles | The Saxon Stories - Bernard Cornwell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Funeral, One-Shot, Throw-Away Line, young Finan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:55:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25208341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/soprano_buddy15/pseuds/soprano_buddy15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I had more fun at the burying of my father.”</p><p>A short one-shot based on a throw-away line from Finan in season 3.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bury It Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Java_Blythe_Peralta/gifts">Java_Blythe_Peralta</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while and I’ve missed you all so much! </p><p>We just opened to the public this week at the pool I’m managing and it has been terribly stressful, but overall, pretty good! I’ve got some ideas I want to write and hopefully I’ll get them out soon!</p><p>ALSO WE ARE GETTING A SEASON 5 LETS GOOOOO.</p><p>Constructive comments are always welcome! Just don’t be rude, because nobody wants that.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Finally.</em>
</p><p>Finan nervously looked around, as if the mourners at his father’s wake could hear him. They were dressed in their finest clothes, each bowing before his cold body upon the stone. The people were lined up out the door, and Finan could see the sweltering waves of heat out in the courtyard. He could only imagine how hot it would be out there. </p><p>Finan was coming up on his seventeenth summer, already betrothed to a princess from the southern kingdom. He knew that he would inherit the kingdom, but he never imagined it would be so soon. He believed that he would marry, command his father’s army for a few years, have the children he was expected to, and then graciously take the throne after his father’s death. </p><p>His mother closed her hand around his wrist. He was fidgeting, he knew that, but the spring heat collected in the room, especially with the crowds of people walking in to pay their respects. </p><p>Conall was on the other side of their mother; posture straight, hands clasped gently in front of him. Finan wished he could be as collected as Conall, but he was much more comfortable riding in the forest and practicing sword skill. Besides, Conall was not involved with their father as much as Finan was. Conall was taught by their mother and other tutors: How to read and write scripture, how to work in the fields, how to swing a sword. Finan was taught how to sit, to listen, to command armies of men and how to take what you want. </p><p>Unfortunately, none of that education could help him get out of the hall, as much as he wanted it. </p><p>He glanced at his father’s face. The skin was grey and sallow, and his expression was one of peace. </p><p>It looked like such a lie.</p><p>The king had never been a man of peace. The king was abrupt and greedy, never fearing anyone. Finan gingerly rubbed his thigh, where his father’s sceptre had whacked him earlier in the week. He had been bouncing his leg up and down during the meeting of the Witan, and after everyone had left, Finan had found himself walking out of the hall very gingerly. </p><p>Finan glanced at Conall. He could tell his younger brother was bored. Their father only really approved of Conall on the basis that he was another son. Conall had never experienced their father’s rage, and had only seen it second-hand from Finan’s bruises.</p><p>Finan was glad for his brother that he didn’t have to deal with that, but there was the childish jealously that stuck with him whenever he saw the purpling bruises on his skin. All that Conall had to think about were the bruises from sparring and the blemishes that came when a boy grew into a man. </p><p>He stopped rubbing his leg as the priest began chanting in Latin. The people stopped milling around as the chants echoed through the hall, high and singing-like. </p><p>Sometimes Finan wondered why. </p><p>Why is it that he must bear the brutality of his king? His father? What did he do to deserve the punches and the hits? </p><p>He knew that inheriting the kingdom was no small thing. He had literally been born to continue the kingship of his father and grandfather, to protect the Ulaid tribe that lived under their rule. </p><p>He glanced at his brother, and could tell by the glazed over eyes that Conall was definitely not paying any attention. It seemed even his mother was perhaps not listening as closely as she probably should. The priest had turned to giving a message, and Finan was only half-listening at the words. It was something about “the power and grace with how he had ruled” and Finan tried to stomach the twisting of his gut at the lies. </p><p>But, his father had brought strength to the land. The Danes had been pushed back to the southern kingdom, and the North was busy with trade. Fields were thriving and the crops were bountiful. But again, Finan wondered <em>why</em>. </p><p>Was it that his father was a brilliant man? That he could strategically plan battles and ambushes to succeed in battles? Or was it that he was ruthless, and greedy, and not stopping to pause at anything?</p><p>He felt the bruise on his leg again. Maybe it was both. And perhaps, maybe that’s why Finan was now the king of the largest kingdom in Irland. The proof of it was in his bruise itself. Never had Finan’s father hit in a place where the bruise can show, and his father had never failed to punish him. </p><p>The priest started chanting again, pleading God to accept the king’s soul into Heaven. Although the weight of the kingdom was weighing down on him, a shiver of freedom passed through him. </p><p>Never again would he experience the sting of a hand cracking against his cheek. Never again would he wake up to bruises and fractured bones. Never again would he take the beating while his mother and brother watched in silence from the shadows. </p><p>Never again would he be <em>hurt</em> by anybody. </p><p>Never again.</p>
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